The fourth volume of A Hazard of New Fortunes opens with Fulkerson proposing a dinner to celebrate the success of Every Other Week, a scheme that quickly reveals the fault lines among the periodical's stakeholders. The excerpts show Dryfoos, the wealthy proprietor, as an uneasy presence—proud of his investment yet uncertain how to engage with the literary talk that dominates the gathering. March, the editor, is described as a "modest Boston petunia" who shrinks from publicity, while Fulkerson eagerly seeks "all the publicity we can get." The dinner itself becomes a stage for competing voices: Colonel Woodburn praises Scott and Addison, Beaton champions Baudelaire and Maupassant, and Lindau recites Schiller and Hugo. These literary allegiances are not merely aesthetic; they signal deeper divisions in taste, class, and political experience.

The Proprietor's Unease

Dryfoos, the financier behind Every Other Week, is portrayed as an outsider at his own celebration. He listens "uneasily" to the literary banter, not fully grasping allusions to Shakespeare or Flaubert. March senses that Dryfoos is "even a little afraid of him, as of a piece of mechanism he had acquired, but did not quite understand." This mechanical metaphor underscores the transactional nature of their relationship: Dryfoos owns the magazine but cannot participate in its intellectual life. His only significant contribution to the dinner talk is a recollection of Civil War-era volunteers singing a folk song, a personal memory that momentarily bridges the gap. Yet even this gesture is tinged with loss—Lindau, a veteran who lost an arm in the war, responds with a sobering remark about those who "nefer gome pack." The old man's wealth cannot buy him entry into the literary circle, and his attempts at camaraderie feel forced.

Literary Loyalties as Social Markers

The dinner conversation becomes a catalog of literary preferences that double as social statements. Colonel Woodburn, a Southerner, advocates for Scott and Addison as authors who "form the minds of gentlemen." Kendricks adds Flaubert, praising "style" as "the man." Beaton, the artist, goes further, extolling Baudelaire and Maupassant and reciting "lurid verses." Lindau, the German socialist, counters with Victor Hugo and Schiller. These choices reflect not only personal taste but also political and cultural allegiances: Woodburn's conservatism, Beaton's decadent modernism, Lindau's radical humanism. March, caught in the middle, quietly champions Heine. Fulkerson, ever the pragmatist, tries to steer the talk back to business, sensing that Dryfoos is being left out. The scene dramatizes how literary taste functions as a code for identity and belonging, with each speaker staking a claim to cultural authority.

The Dinner as a Stage for Unresolved Tensions

Fulkerson's plan for the dinner is explicitly commercial: he wants "the big talk" to generate publicity for Every Other Week. Yet the actual event resists his control. The talk veers into literary debates that exclude Dryfoos, and the toasts—to Lindau's empty sleeve, to the Civil War—introduce a note of solemnity that undercuts the celebratory mood. The champagne flows, but the laughter is uneasy. Howells uses the dinner as a microcosm of the larger conflicts in the novel: between art and commerce, between old and new money, between Northern and Southern loyalties, between generations. The characters perform their roles—the manager, the editor, the proprietor, the artist, the veteran—but the performance is strained. The reader senses that the success of Every Other Week is fragile, built on a coalition of incompatible interests that the dinner only exposes.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to how Howells uses social occasions—a dinner, a toast, a literary argument—to reveal character and conflict. The excerpts offer no resolution; instead, they accumulate tensions that will likely demand resolution later. Pay particular attention to the way each character's speech reflects their background and ambitions, and to the silences and misunderstandings that punctuate the conversation. The dinner is not merely a celebration; it is a pressure test for the fragile alliance that sustains Every Other Week.